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From Belarus a techdeath band named Amentia have come to surprise us all with some of the best brutal technical death metal you will hear all year. They might not be a household name within the genre, yet, but Amentia have existed since 2003 with Scourge being the bands third full-length release, six years after their sophomore album Incurable Disease. Having never heard of the band myself I was caught off-guard by the bands tight riffs and blasting drums. To me this is close to a perfect score, everything just seems to hit the right notes at the right times.

Not a single song on the album is even close to being bad and Scourge has been on repeat several times these past days. Only thing is that the songs tends to be a bit indistinguishable which makes it hard for the songs to stand out to one another. Sometimes that can be a good thing, sometimes not and in this case I would like there to be some more variation. In a year when heavy hitters like Decrepit Birth, Suffocation, Hideous Divinity and Hour of Penance are releasing killer techdeath Amentia are making a great effort to stand tall next to those monsters. This is the perfect opportunity to get to know a great upcoming band with an album you do not want to miss.

From India we have one of the biggest death metal surprises of the year so far in Plague Throat and their album The Human Paradox. The band plays a heavy and technical death metal style that reminds me a lot of Nile, Origin, Suffocation and Hour of Penance. That’s some big names and hard market to break into but Plague Throat makes a really good try at it and this is in all honesty the best music I’ve heard coming from India, not that I’ve heard a big deal of bands from the area though but still. So how does Plague Throat fare against those heavy hitters?

Fact is they can stand tall against them, The Human Paradox shows a lot of promise and songs like Fallible Transgression and Hour of Darkness are just as technical and good death metal like the bigger names out there. They might not have the vast experience and originality some of those bands have (or used to have at least) but The Human Paradox is an album they can build on. I totally get how Plague Throat can go on to win Wacken Metal Battle India and be seen as one of the upcoming exports that can hit it big from India as they sure got a lot of the boxes checked in for doing so.

In all honesty I had just as good of a time listening to The Human Paradox as I had with Origin’s latest album Unparalleled Universe. Only thing is it misses that stand out song like Unequivocal for example but in return I find this a more tight album all around. One thing is certain, Plague Throat is definitely the band to look out for from India as they are bound to spread their plague upon the world eventually.

Picking a top 10 is always hard, I personally try to mix it up with various genres as well. There were some albums which on any other day could be in this top 10 but this is what I am sticking with! Also just like last year I only choose albums I’ve reviewed. Meaning there are some albums that’s actually good and been out before this is written but I haven’t had the time to review them, hence they are not in the running. So here you go The Metal Gamer top 10 albums of 2017…..so far!

Guess what? There is a third good album that came out April 28th! Hideous Divinity is a band I am sure many of you are familiar with. Being formed in 2007 (in Norway actually) and featuring two ex-Hour of Penance back then they took the brutal technical death metal scene by storm. Since then quite a few lineup changes have happened, one were Mauro Mercurio (ex-Hour of Penance) left forcing Enrico Schettino to rebuild. That didn’t stop him nor the band though as the debut album and sophomore received much praise from the metal community. Adveniens has been on many peoples minds when thinking what album can be a contender for best techdeath album this year.

What strikes me straight away is the punishing drums that keeps on hammering your skull. Enrico hasn’t lost his touch on the guitar either as he has yet another really strong performance. Stefano Franceschini on bass (Aborted) adds a lot of heavyness with his bass play, as expected from a man with his caliber and he already showed it on Cobra Verde, this time he is even better though. There is a lot here that you can hear have the roots from Hour of Penance, which isn’t a bad thing since it’s one of my favorite bands when it comes to techdeath. Ages Die starts off violent with some of the best work Hideous Divinity has done. Hard to top that you would think right? Be sure as hell they do though! Passages starts off slow (one of the few times you get to breath on the album) and it features several different “passages” throughout the song, showcasing a lot of different aspect to their music. The song got a bit of a Nile touch to it that way (I’ve always loved how they change tempos) and it sticks out for me.

All in all this is a great album. Hideous Divinity is definitely one of the best technical death metal bands going, having released three solid albums now. Getting slightly better with each one. Italy might just have Europe’s best techdeath scene right now with Septycal Gorge, Deceptionist (featuring two ex-Hideous Divinity members), Hour of Penance and Hideous Divinity all released top albums these past three years. And they don’t look like they are slowing down either!

What do you get when you get three very talented technical musicians together? You get Virulent Depravity! The band was created by Colin Butler, who is on guitar, bas and vocals duty. He quickly got the attention from well-known musicians within the technical death metal community and before he knew it he had guitarist Malcolm Pugh (Inferi, ex-Entheos) and drummer Kevin Paradis (Svart Crown, ex-live Benighted) in his line-up.

Fruit of the Poisoned Tree is the bands debut album. Get ready for a flurry of blasting solos, high speed tech-death with a very high level of quality throughout the album. You can definitely tell this is the craftsmanship of some veterans in the scene who knows how to maintain quality and pushing themselves all the way through. The guitars and the sound of it takes me back to Spawn of Possession and their legendary Incurso album. Not a small feat. This is one of the more technical albums I’ve heard in a long time, even for a technical death metal album it’s very heavy on the solos and tempo changes. Meaning this is the wet dream to people who like their tech-death as technical as humanly possible. Whereas I am personally more of a Hour of Penance kind of tech-death type of guy I still need my fill of this type of thing too, I just need to be in the right mood.

Virulent Depravity delivers what most metalheads hoped for, a freaking sweet technical death metal album for fans of Spawn of Possession, Origin and Archspire to dig into. Fruit of the Poisoned Tree is out April 7th through The Artisan Era Records.

Italian brutal techdeath masters Hour of Penance are back with a flurry of blistering riffs and brutality some bands can only dream of to jell together into a perfect mix. And oh does it deliver! After having listened to the single XII Century Imperial Crusade a million times already I knew this album was going to be something special. However after listening to the album I am still in ave. XII Century Imperial Crusade, as great as it is, isn’t even one of the best tracks on the album!

Track after track Hour of Penance keeps on giving me some of the best riffs and music I’ve heard in a long time. The album is so polished, yet undeniable crushing and I can only applaud them for keeping such high quality during their career even on their seventh release. The addition of drummer Davide “BrutalDave” Billia (Beheaded, Septycal Gorge and Xenomorphic Contamination) only seems to have fuelled this tank of destruction that is Hour of Penance. I have to say time after time again when I hear Davide he rises on my list of the best drummers in the world, he puts in a lot of hard work and has never let me down so far.

Hour of Penance has already released a contender for album of the year. I urge you, do not miss this album!

Malta’s brutal death metal heroes Beheaded are back after a long five years wait since Never to Dawn came out. So what’s changed since then? Well the band has seen two new additions to it’s lineup with Davide Billia (Hour of Penance, Septycal Gorge and Xenomorphic Contamination) joining on drums and Simone Brigo (Blasphemer) on guitars. Also their sound has changed a bit, might be due to the change of members but that I am not sure of. The band has taken a turn into the more old school death metal sound, while still keeping it very brutal death metal. While I personally think this is a good way to go seeing how popular OSDM has become yet again, plus the fact that I love the genre, but I can understand if some of the older fans of Beheaded might see this as something bad. This is something the band has slowly changed into since Never to Dawn though so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Beast Incarnate is a solid album, you can be sure of that (if you even thought otherwise). The album will surely grab the attention of new fans to the band but might also drive some of the older ones away. It’s always a big and hard step to move away from your comfort zone and try something new. I think Beheaded does it really well though and are now a sweet mix between the likes of Suffocation and Death. A mix I am sure most death metal fans will enjoy.